PCA – Choosing an Organization

Kyle Craig

OGL 481 Org Leadership Pro-Seminar I

6/22/2021
 Organization and Situation

The organization I will be doing a case study on throughout this course is Gilbert
Public Schools. Gilbert Public Schools is a school district in Maricopa county that
oversees 40 schools and 33, 000 students (Gilbert Public Schools, 2021). The District
was founded in 1913 and employs over 4,000 people (Gilbert Public Schools, 2021). The
district is overseen by a board of five men and women who are elected by majority vote
and a superintendent serves the entire district (Gilbert Public Schools, 2021). This is a
state funded organization that exists to educate Kindergarten-12th grade students in Mesa,
Gilbert, and Chandler, Arizona.

I serve on the Gilbert Public Schools governing board and am two years into my
four year term. I ran for a seat on the board because my children are enrolled in three of
the Gilbert Public Schools and I have a vested interest in their education and in the
district running smoothly now and for future students. As a board member, I get the
opportunity to celebrate the victories within our district and academic excellence, but I
also have to sort through any issues the district faces.

In March 2020, WHO declared the SARS-CoV-2 a worldwide pandemic. As a

result, almost every country in the world attempted to slow the spread of this contagious
respiratory disease by any means possible. Schools, non-essential businesses, and most
travel was brought to a screeching halt mid-March. This left public schools in a
predicament; the school year wasn’t over, standars were yet to be achieved, and kids
needed something to seem normal amidst all of the change.

Enter virtual learning. Teachers were forced to scramble and create completely
online curicculums for students over what should have been spring break. Teachers and
students did the best they could through the end of May 2020, a two week break that
extended through the end of the school year. Teachers and students were optimistic that
Fall would get them back into the physical classroom but virologists and epidemologists
warned of a second wave that certainly arrived in the Fall of 2020. Online learning
continues. At this point teachers are tired of the model and students are exhausted by the
new learning model but there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

Gilbert Public School Board determined on November 4, 2020 that children

would enter a hybrid learning model in December 2020 and discussions about the
following semester would be addressed at a later time (Gilbert Public Schools, 2020).
Teachers then threatened a “sickout” to protest putting themselves and their families in
danger by going back to in person learning, while parents celebrated a return to the
classroom for their children. As the Fall semester ended, families and employees were
still waiting for the update for the Spring semester. That decision took six hours in a
board meeting on January 5, 2021. This case study will look into the specifics of the

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 board meeting that determined the way forward for Gilbert Public Schools and the
reaction to the highly debated decision.

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 Reference

Gilbert Public Schools. (2021, May 14). About Our Schools / About Gilbert Public Schools.
About Our Schools / About. https://www.gilbertschools.net/ourschools. 

Gilbert Public Schools. (2020, December 3). Hybrid Update for Families - 12/3/2020: Read
More. Hybrid Update for Families - 12/3/2020 | Read More.
https://www.gilbertschools.net/site/default.aspx?
PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=5756&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-
a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=14813&PageID=2002.